Yacht Aid Global - Video

YachtAid Global
http://vimeo.com/20002328

About this video:
"The mission of YachtAid Global is to use luxury yachts to move school and medical supplies to locations worldwide that need the help. We engage Captain, Crew, Owners and Guest to meet our objectives. Produced by Praxis Universal."

Nice mention of Vivid and Yacht Aid Global's Komodo Village School Fence project. (about 1 minute into video)

YachtAid Global from Praxis Universal on Vimeo.

Piracy strikes close

It is with great sadness that I learned about the SY Quest crew.  This hits very close to home.  The SY Quest was anchored 300 meters from us three weeks ago prior to there departure for Salah.  The Adam's where members of the Del Rey Yacht Club in Marina del Rey where I was sailing out of for years while living in Los Angeles.  

The piracy situation in the Indian Ocean has become extreme in the past three months with the area of attacks increasing to the shores of India, and more importantly the tactics used now include attacking private yachts and killing crew.  This has many yachts that I have personally talked with in the past few weeks abandoning there sailing plans for going west and shipping their vessels.

Pirates Kill Four Captives Onboard Hijacked SV Quest Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Pirates onboard the hijacked yacht, SV Quest, killed all four of its captives in the early hours of Tuesday, February 22, according to a statement from the US Central Command. SV Quest was hijacked by pirates approximately 400 nm east of Salalah on February 18 as she was underway from Mumbai to Salalah with four US citizens onboard; Jean and Scott Adam, and Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle. According to the US Central Command statement, four US frigates were assigned as a response force to aid the stricken yacht;USS Enterprise, USS Leyte Gulf, USS Sterett and USS Bulkeley. It was reported that one of these frigates had been tracking SV Quest since she was hijacked.

Mumbai, India

We are in Mumbai India now and it is a real shocker.  Unlike anyplace that I have been.  I have been fortunate to travel and get in deep to many remote places, but this is different.  The wide spread poverty is hard to digest.  The general overcrowding of people.  The infrastructure reminds me of Cuba, A place that once was grand and then was left to decay with no maintenance or upgrades. 

There are 20 million people in Mumbai (Bombay) India, and 4 million are homeless.  To put that in perspective; in the whole country of Australia there are 21 million people and Australia is the size of all of India.

Life is very much "in your face".  Yelling, pushing, begging, touting, if you have personal space issues - this is not the place for you!  Driving is insane, I would not even think of renting a car or motor bike here.  It is common practice to use your horn as much as you use your brake pedal and it is grid lock stop and go traffic here with incessant horns.  It can drive you mental after about a 15 minute taxi ride.  The accepted practice if there is a car crash is that you get out and beat the person that was wrong.  Makes me wonder if California was on to something with "No Fault Insurance".  The hustling, scamming and touts ashore wear you down.  The Lonely Planet warns of scams to lure you to a family restaurant, drug you and then steal your vital organs for resale on the market.  Nice.  

It is like a scene out of a disaster movie, how the world tries to cope after being nuked.  It is the worst place I have ever seen for negative impact on the environment.